Future of Learning - Report for Digital Democracy

FUTURE
of
LEARNING
Wevolve is a New York-based, future-oriented think-do tank that explores, lives, and breaths the vanguard of socio-cultural change to provide
direction for better futures, for what could be. http://wevolve.us

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THIS DOCUMENT IS PREPARED IN COLLABORATION
WITH DIGITAL DEMOCRACY, A NON-PROFIT
ORGANIZATION THAT WORKS GLOBALLY TO EMPOWER
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES.

WEVOLVE IS A HELSINKI / NEW YORK-BASED, FUTURE-
ORIENTED THINK-DO TANK THAT EXPLORES THE
VANGUARD OF SOCIO-CULTURAL AND DIGITAL
CHANGE TO PROVIDE DIRECTION FOR BETTER FUTURES
– FOR WHAT COULD BE.

Wevolve is a Helsinki / New York-based, future-oriented think-do tank that explores the vanguard of socio-cultural and digital change to
identify opportunities for better future. http://wevolve.us

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CONTENTS
4 – INTRO

6 – BIG PICTURE

10 – DIRECTIONS FOR NEW LEARNING SOLUTIONS:

10 – NETWORKED LEARNING

13 – PLAYFUL LEARNING

16 – CONTEXTUAL LEARNING

19 – LEARNING FOR PREPAREDNESS


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INTRO
Every aspect of humanity that is not genetic is learnt. Learning is central in our lives from
cradle to grave and its importance is continuously growing in the 21st Century as we—as a
species, societies, communities and individuals—need to adapt to the rapidly changing
cultural, social, technological, political and environmental landscapes. It is expected that the
most crucial abilities in the near future will be learning new things and skills, and sharing and
collaborating with others to overcome the forthcoming challenges and grasping new
opportunities throughout the turbulent decades in front of us.

While the major challenges of the future are very real and concrete the learning solutions
are increasingly digital and fluid, in both developed and developing countries, spurred by the
rapid growth of worldwide access to digital technology and the Internet. Improving digital
literacy—including the skills to use, create and shape new digital solutions, and drive action
trough digital means—will be the key element in the near future for better learning.

Wevolve partnered with Digital Democracy to explore the future of learning, specifically in
digital contexts and through digital means, to create strategic guidelines for educators,
teachers, activists, hackers, students, researchers, designers and policy makers that should
help to identify and define emerging opportunities to facilitate and catalyze learning and
digital literacy.

This report discusses some of the big macro shifts, socio-cultural trends, and emerging
learning behaviors and solutions that shape the future opportunity space for learning. The
idea is to instigate and inspire new ideas, conversation and collaborative action for co-
creating new digital learning solutions that eventually empower civic engagement and
facilitate digital democracy.

Yours,
Wevolve


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BIG PICTURE
Once upon the time, the world appeared to be somewhat predictable and our lives seemed
to be almost prescribed all the way from school to retirement. Now, it is certain that this is
not the case anymore, if it ever really was. New threats on a global scale—ecological
catastrophes, economical turmoil, humanitarian crises and political injustices—are popping
up almost on a daily basis and a prosperous and harmonious future seems uncertain for
nations, communities and individuals alike. In this era of increasing change, we can’t take
things for granted and just hope for the best but we have to prepare for, respond to, and
rapidly act on the big and small shifts and events around us. This requires new knowledge
and skills that are acquired and shared in new ways. Luckily there is a mounting amount of
available information, effective networks, and powerful tools in our disposal to support the
21st Century learning practices and we see people in both developed and developing world
are extremely motivated to learn new ways to deal with the change.

When the world seems to become more complex and fluid, education and learning
increasingly need to provide us the ability to understand and tackle more and more wicked
problems. Often, the formal education system and common curriculum will not provide the
needed knowledge and skills, and even if it would, good formal education is not a luxury to
even consider for the majority of people globally. In the coming years learning needs to—
and more than ever, can— happen outside the classroom and throughout our lives in every
age, every situation and every context. This means most educational institutions and
instances will have to broaden their scope and rethink their approach to maintain their
relevance when students of all kinds are becoming more autonomous, self-reliant and
resourceful, and new learning solutions are effectively filling in the current gaps.

The big opportunities for new learning solutions and better digital literacy are framed by
the major social and cultural shifts around the world—such as continuing social mobility,
proliferation of women’s and children’s rights and the fast growing ethical awareness and
attitude for direct action—that create more equal opportunities for learning in both
developed and developing countries. These are coupled with and enabled by an abundance
of new lightweight, modular, hackable and relatively affordable technology that will likely
empower more and more people to connect and collaborate in totally new ways, increasing
the overall access to information and opening up new possibilities for life-long and hyper-
contextual learning.


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Below you can find a more detailed description of some of the key shifts that are pushing us
to become more self-reliant and active learners, capable of acquiring new and relevant
knowledge, ideas, skills and practices for the brighter and more equal future.

SOCIAL DRIVERS

Decentralization of Global Networks
From unequal globalization and centralized opaque power structures >> toward
decentralized and inclusive global grassroots networks that allow people to share
information and resources and enable new forms of cross-cultural and societal
collaboration that promotes learning, advocacy, livelihood and well-being.

New Social Structures
From old and stagnant social and cultural structures that limit autonomy and equal
opportunities for learning >> toward flexible “ad hoc” social structures that help individuals
and communities survive and thrive in new environments and contexts, for example when
individuals and families migrate to urban environments and create new support networks.

Autonomous and Collaborative Citizens
From passive and powerless consumers >> toward active producers and autonomous
citizens who are motivated and capable of improving their skills, acquiring new information
and knowledge in order to become more self-reliant and empowered.

TECHNOLOGICAL DRIVES

Increasing Access
From digital divide, centralized technologies and scarce access >> toward ever-increasing
openness, decentralized systems, hackable technologies and mobile solutions for both
children and adults.

Participatory and Collaborative Technologies
From communication technology and social media >> toward participatory and affordable
tools and platforms that provide means for sharing not just knowledge, but also resources,
skills and abundant opportunities for personal and collaborative learning.


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ENVIRONMENTAL DRIVERS

Super Threats and New Resilience
From an era of powerlessness in front of ecological catastrophes and peak resources >>
toward preparedness and newfound resilience, bottom-up advocacy, innovation and
learning of skills for resiliency.

ECONOMIC DRIVERS

Rise of Alternative Capitals
From dependence on global monetary systems, growing income gaps and unstable or unfair
markets >> toward better self-reliance through increased exchange of social and cultural
capitals and life-long learning of new skills and knowledge.

POLITICAL DRIVERS

Innovative Bottom-up Initiatives
From an era of top-down led societies, stagnant structures, and institutional crisis >>
toward societies powered by innovative grassroots initiatives, increased civic action,
collaboration and readiness for systemic change and better civic rights.


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DIRECTIONS FOR NEW
LEARNING SOLUTIONS
The new empowering learning paradigm is built on fresh learning practices, methods and
solutions that differ from the old practices in many ways. Interesting new learning practices
promote communality and collaboration instead of competition between individual learners,
creativity and playfulness instead of seriousness and repetition, relevant skills and local
knowledge instead of general curriculum, critical thinking and reflection instead of passive
reception, as well as creative preparedness for changing challenges and opportunities
instead of honing the current ideas and status quo.

These new learning practices are being driven by a diverse and creative array of new digital
tools and online platforms, and they all are explained more in detail with the help of a few
emerging examples in the following four chapters.

1. NETWORKED LEARNING

We’re culturally amidst of a rising wave of communality and collaboration, and we are
sharing and bartering knowledge, ideas and skills to maximize opportunities for learning and
gaining valuable cultural capital and peer appreciation in the process. Collaborative and
networked learning environments draw people with a promise of more versatile,
personalized and social learning experiences, engaging learners to more reciprocal and
active participation and rewarding them with abundant communal and personal peer
support.


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Learning networks are becoming highly trusted sources of information that provide access
to collective knowledge produced by professionals and self-trained experts as well as
fulfilling and meaningful relationships with likeminded people. While learning communities
used to be often formed around official courses and curriculums and vanished after the
learning goals were reached, the new decentralized and global learning communities are
more organic, often formed around a multitude of topics, and shaped equally by learners,
teachers and mentors.

Peer 2 Peer University is a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of
institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements. P2PU has grown steadily from five
people into a community of about 1,000. Organizers of P2PU courses are volunteers who submit their
course idea and receive guidance from a wide array of experts and community members to create a
comprehensive syllabus of open materials and a social structure around them. P2PU is currently designing a


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community-supported mentoring system for organizers and participants and experimenting with new ways
of communal assessment and recognizing of learning.

http://p2pu.org

Skillshare is a community marketplace to learn anything from anyone, making the exchange of knowledge
easy, enriching, and fun. They believe that everyone has something they want to learn and something they
can teach to others. Despite connecting communities of likeminded people digitally, all of Skillshare's
classes happen offline as they strongly believe that learning should happen in groups around shared
interests and passions as our communities are really the greatest universities. The magic of learning just
can't be replicated over a webcam and chatroom.

http://www.skillshare.com/


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2. PLAYFUL LEARNING

Educators and parents have long separated learning time from playtime without realizing
the crucial connection between the two. With recent studies showing that playful learning
environments that mix fact and fiction are actually a great way to support and increase
creativity, imagination, group working skills and academic achievement, the old idea that
learning can’t be fun is fading away. Playful learning is also the key to creative problem
solving, helping learners to develop fresh ways of thinking and enabling them to step beyond
limitations of everyday life to experience exciting scenarios and ideal worlds. There is a
variety of new learning solutions and games that incorporate play with serious learning
goals through a mash-up of traditional and interactive techniques, with gaming mentality and
rich storytelling at their core.


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Routes, an eight week-long ARG (augmented reality game) from Channel 4 Education (2009) took
players into the fascinating world of genetics, evolution and the human genome. By solving puzzles, playing
mini games, trading tips, collaborating on challenges and exploring questions such as “Is it genes or
environment that define who we are? and “Do genes hide critical information about disease?” players
uncovered a compelling murder mystery that lay at the heart of Routes itself: the chief scientific advisor of
Routes, Markus Schoenberg, went missing and the story of his disappearance played out across the whole
web. During the live run players were able to interact with characters inside the mystery and also enjoy a
related documentary series by a Canadian comedian.

http://www.routesgame.com

Pig 05049, a book that shows 186 end products made from a single pig. The twist is that the book takes
a surprising and creative approach in uncovering and re-establishing many connections between products,

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their origins and their end-users. The unique and accessible communication design unveils how parts of a
pig can be found from such unexpected products as ammunition, medicine, photo paper, heart valves,
brakes, chewing gum, porcelain, cosmetics, cigarettes, conditioner and even bio-diesel.

http://www.christienmeindertsma.com/index.php?/books/pig-05049/

Scratch is a programming language, aimed for kids, that makes it easy to create own interactive stories,
animations, games, music and art—and share the creations on the web. The big idea with Scratch is that as
young people create and share projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while
also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. Scratch is developed by
the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab

http://scratch.mit.edu/


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3. CONTEXTUAL LEARNING

As the search-based web has already demonstrated, people don’t need to know everything
but can acquire knowledge or learn a skill when they need it. Contextual learning happens
mostly ad-hoc, on demand and on premises, when the learner faces a new or unexpected
problem or challenge and needs a quick solution. Contextual learning can happen remotely
anytime and anywhere relying on vast collections of existing online tutorials and knowledge
already held within local or global communities. It can also be hyper-local and real-time,
where learners often turn to micro blogs and location based solutions, such as Twitter and
different mash-up map applications to find and contribute timely and relevant information
and discover quick solutions and best practices.

.


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Like YouTube videos, the tutorials at 5min provide compact and easily digestible pieces of practical
knowledge and useful skills for every challenge with topics ranging from fitness routines and creative
writing to tech tutorials and DIY projects for home and garden. 5min’s library includes all in all tens of
thousands of videos across 20 categories and 140 subcategories featuring content from some of the
world’s largest media companies as well as the most innovative independent producers.

http://www.5min.com

Wikitude is a mobile application that provides augmented reality overlays on the real world to enhance
perception and available information. Currently, Wikitude is most commonly used as a travel guide and
users can get web-based information about points of interest, where to eat, description of buildings and
architectural images of historical places, providing rudimentary contextual learning experiences.

http://www.wikitude.org/en/


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QR codes and other tags provide an example of technology that creates numerous way to turn any
environment into a learning environment, linking objects to online resources and how-to-manuals, etc. In
this case, red velvet cupcakes frosted with vanilla buttercream and topped with handcrafted fondant
Twitter birds and edible QR Codes were created for #TwestivalMTL. The QR Code on the cupcakes leads
to the Concern Worldwide webpage that accepts online donations.

Image by Clevercupcakes


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4. LEARNING FOR PREPAREDNESS

Growing uncertainty of the future and the new participatory and collaborative platforms for
sharing and learning new skills and knowledge have made preparing for forthcoming
situations and risky scenarios easier and more exciting. As a species, we humans are
generally overestimating the pleasures of today and almost always underestimating the pains
of the future and the amount of change in the long term. Simulating possible future
experiences—both big and small situations, in both near and the long term—helps us to
better develop a skill set and critical thinking capabilities that are relevant also tomorrow.


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EVOKE is a free social network game which aims to empower young people all over the world, and
especially young people in Africa, to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems.
This crash course in changing the world, developed by Jane McGonigal and funded by the World Bank
Institute, started on March 2010 and lasted for ten weeks enticing players to join in anytime. At the end of
the game successful participants became the first graduating class of the EVOKE network and players who
successfully complete 10 game challenges claimed their honors as Certified EVOKE Social Innovators. Top
players also earned online mentorships with experienced social innovators and business leaders from
around the world, seed funding for new ventures, and travel scholarships to share their vision for the
future at the EVOKE Summit in Washington DC.

http://www.urgentevoke.com

Superstruct was a massively multiplayer forecasting game, created by the Institute for the Future, and
played by more than 8000 citizen future-forecasters from September to November 2008. Although the game is no
longer live, the archived game content reveals how the game was played. The players were given four missions, first
joining the community, secondly inventing their future selves for year 2019, thirdly discovering and learning about
superthreaths, and finally adopting a superthreat from five threat scenarios, learning all about it and adopt another.

http://archive.superstructgame.net


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Values at Play (VAP) research project believes that video games are an increasingly important medium
with global relevance and wide-ranging cultural influence, and harnessing them in the service of humanistic
principles holds tremendous potential to educate and inspire. VAP promotes diversification in video game
values to include positive principles like equity, creativity, diversity, and negotiation, and encourages
designer to create “activist games” that teach and inspire social activism, empathy, and other values. The
VAP team’s most recent digital game Layoff attracted over 1 million players in its first week of release and
educated players about the financial crisis. The research project is supported by the National Science
Foundation and a diverse advisory board of game designers and academics.

http://www.valuesatplay.org


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“WE NEED A
GENERATION
OF
INNOVATORS,
NOT JUST
CONSUMERS”
- T o n y W a g n e r , C o - d i r e c t o r , H a r v a r d G r a d u a t e S c h o o l o f
E d u c a t i o n , C h a n g e L e a d e r s h i p G r o u p -


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